How the Matrix Movies Ended, Leaving Room for The Matrix Resurrections

We are hours away from the release of Lana Wachowskis The matrix 4 also known The Matrix Resurrections, a film that re-introduces the mentally gifted freedom fighter Neo (Keanu Reeves) and his lover Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). Trailer for the 1999 film echo events of the original, with footage of Neo walking through the rippling reflection of a mirror with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpheus-like character in a dojo and pills – lots and lots of blue pills – fights. We won’t say much more about how this all fits in with the original Matrix films, but we will say, it can’t hurt to know what happened in the original Matrix films.

It’s kind of been almost 18 years since the release of The Matrix Revolutions, the third film in the original Matrix trilogy, and a lot has happened since then, both off the screen and on the big screen. For those who scratch their heads and want to remember what happened in the end Revolutions, the long awaited release of The Matrix Resurrections seems like a crucial time to look back. Wachowski seems to be remixing and / or folding the mythology in new and fascinating ways in the new sequel to the series, which makes the intricate lore more relevant.

2003 The Matrix Revolutions ended with Neo traveling with Trinity in Niobe’s (Jada Pinkett Smith) hovercraft ship Logos to Machine City to negotiate a truce with the machine operator and end the war. On their way into town, Neo and Trinity are ambushed by Bane, a human resistance fighter assimilated by Agent Smith during the events Matrix Reloaded. Neo fights Bane and is blinded by an exposed power cable during the scuffle. Even so, Neo discovers that he can see the machine’s source code in the real world, which enables him to “see” Bane and ultimately defeat Bane. As the Logos approaches the machine city, the ship is bombed by the city’s defenses. The Logos makes it to town, but Trinity is mortally wounded on arrival, leaving Neo alone. Neo meets with the machine operator and proposes a truce between the humans and the machines on condition that they defeat their common enemy, Agent Smith, who poses an imminent threat to both the Matrix and the real world.

Pictured: Warner Bros. Pictures

Neo eventually defeats Agent Smith, but his fate is questioned; we see his body on a floating barge, which then carries him to the machine city. The Sentinels, the manhunting killing machines ordered by the machine operator to cease attacks on the human city of Zion under the terms of Neo’s armistice, are withdrawn from Zion after Smith’s defeat. The Matrix is ​​then restarted by Agent Smith after Neo’s destruction.

In the final scene of the film, The Architect (Helmut Bakaitis) meets the Oracle (Mary Alice) in a park and tells her that she “played a dangerous game” by converting the variable of the Trinity into this latest incarnation of the cyclic repeating system of the matrix and planning for this result. As the architect Neo explained at the end Matrix Reloaded

, there were a total of six different iterations of the matrix that were created to imprison humanity and to integrate the impulse of resistance of the human race into the self-sustaining cycle of their existence, and to wipe out any human being freed from the matrix between iterations, before a new generation of resistance fighters is created, led by another “one”. What sets Neo apart from all of the previous ones is that his love for humanity, which was a constant in all of his predecessors, was instead centered on one person: Trinity. This gave Neo the motivation not to continue the cycle of destruction built into the Matrix and instead give priority to her life at the end of the year Matrix Reloaded.

Pictured: Warner Bros. Pictures

In the end, the architect and the oracle agree that anyone who wants to leave the matrix has the opportunity to do so now and that the armistice will last “as long as possible”. The oracle is approached by Seraph (Collin Chou), her bodyguard, and Sati (Tanveer K. Atwal), a young, confident program that the oracle took on as a ward earlier in the film. When Sati asks if Neo will ever be seen again, the oracle replies, “I suppose so. Someday.”

Because of the trailer, fans know that the film takes place some time after the events of The Matrix Revolutions, given the discrepancy between Neo’s appearance in this movie and his appearance in the upcoming episode. The last time we saw Neo, the machines carried him into the heart of the machine city. A recording in the trailer suggests that he may still be there or that the machines took care of him after restarting the Matrix. The final scene between the architect and the oracle suggests, in one way or another, a continuation of the matrix.

Pictured: Warner Bros. Pictures

As for Trinity, viewers saw her during the events of. to die The Matrix Revolutionswhich leaves Wachowski many opportunities to take up in the sequel. New characters played by Jessica Henwick (Love and monsters) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, the end of The Matrix Revolutions suggest that many people would thrive and survive in the real world for years after the machine attack.

How important a role Revolutions plays in understanding The Matrix Resurrections is really up to the audience as it sees it when it hits theaters and HBO Max on December 22nd. In the meantime, may we propose all three Matrix films, Streaming currently on HBO Max?